


Love is a Four-Legged Word

by treaddelicately



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Cotton Candy Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, I'm dead serious you guys it's nothing but spun sugar here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25650481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treaddelicately/pseuds/treaddelicately
Summary: Darcy's got a serious problem with bringing home cute dogs who need a place to go. Clint should probably put his foot down at some point, but he's a sucker for a set of puppy eyes.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Darcy Lewis
Comments: 16
Kudos: 75
Collections: Darcy Lewis Bingo





	Love is a Four-Legged Word

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Darcy Lewis Bingo, square **Y4: Animal Rescue**.
> 
> Beta work courtesy of BoudicaMuse, my personal cheerleader who deserves all the sweet puppy kisses in the world.

The regular chorus of barking started when Clint’s feet hit the front porch. As usual, the second he got the door open he was overrun with wagging tails whacking his legs and neatly groomed paws planting themselves on his stomach in an attempt to be the first to receive pets.

“Hey, guys.” He tossed his keys aside and the pack’s exuberance only kicked up a notch. Now he had _two_ free hands for petting. “Who’s a good dog? Huh? Who’s been good today?”

That really put it into overdrive. Clint laughed and took his time giving each of the dogs their favorite type of attention. Bennet, the Aussie mix, loved scratches behind the ears. Harry the hound dog preferred to roll over and show his belly for it to be patted. Lucky just liked getting table scraps, which was probably Clint’s fault after so many years of feeding him pizza straight from the box.

“Hey, Darce,” he called out, scooping Butter up into one arm and heading through the house. “You home?”

It was a mostly pointless question, considering her car was in the driveway, but there was still the possibility she was out in the backyard somewhere. The entire reason they’d bought this place so far from the center of town was for the amount of land and space for the dogs to run. Clint never minded the space, though. He could take his camera anywhere so it wasn’t like commuting was an issue.

Sure enough, the sliding glass door leading to the fenced-in yard was open and Clint could hear her whistling as he approached. Confused, he did a head count of the four-legged furballs trailing behind him and the one in his arms. 

Lucky, Bennet, Harry, Butter… all present. Who was she whistling for?

Then it hit. And he groaned. Not again.

“Darcy!” 

She was small in the distance, by the back end of the fence, but Clint could already picture the guilty look on her face when her head snapped up. She started to walk towards him, a bouncing dog at her heels that looked like some sort of Jack Russell mix. 

“Heeeeeeeey,” she drawled, stepping onto the back porch. She had a tennis ball clenched in one hand, which she hid behind her back when she saw Clint looking, like the _toy_ was really the problem here. “You’re home early.”

“Not early enough, apparently.” Butter twisted in his arms and he set her down with a sigh. The Jack Russell trotted over to sniff her butt, but apparently they were already acquainted, because he lost interest quickly. “Where’d you get this one?”

Darcy bit her lip, but even that couldn’t hide her smile. “Jane brought Bo in to have his nails trimmed and she may have mentioned that one of her patients needed a temporary home…”

Damn Foster. Honestly, Clint liked having a veterinarian on speed dial in case anything ever went wrong with the pups. Jane had even been the one to save Lucky’s life after he took on a lifted pickup at high speed. But he’d oscillated from the side of grateful to fondly exasperated now that she and Darcy were running a crate-to-Barton-home pipeline for needy animals in her clinic. 

Like it wasn’t bad enough that Darcy went into shelters to offer her grooming services and walked out half the time with another pup for them to foster. 

Clint eyed the Jack Russell. “Is he housebroken?”

“Completely.” 

“He got along with the others?”

“Perfectly. Bennet loves him.”

“Bennet loves anything he can chase. Any medical issues?”

“Jane gave him a clean bill of health. He had shots about a week ago.” She stepped closer, that smile on her face that said she already knew she’d won. “You wanna know his name?”

That was the clincher. She knew he was a damn sucker, even if the dog was nothing more than a yupping beanie baby, and if it had a cute, dumb name… he was fucked.

“Darcy,” he sighed.

“Wishbone, Clint.” Darcy beamed at him, giddy with the ridiculousness of it. “His name is Wishbone.”

Goddammit. He bent down and let Wishbone sniff his hand. Five seconds later, his itty bitty paws were pressed to his chest and he licked Clint’s scruff and that was that. He rubbed the dog between the ears, admitting defeat.

“Does this mean we get to keep him?” Darcy dropped to her knees beside them. Her eyes were doing the wide round thing, like she didn’t know she hadn’t already won. “Pleeeeease?”

“You better make sure he likes the treats we have,” Clint grumbled, nudging Wishbone back when his licking got a little too much. “I’m not buying another kind.”

She made a victorious sound and surged forward to wrap her arms around him, nearly knocking off balance and on his ass, but he managed to steady and stay on his heels while she squeezed the breath out of him.

“I knew I loved you for a reason!”

Clint rolled his eyes and started to pull her in for a kiss, but Wishbone popped up between them and instead he was met with an excessive amount of gross, wet dog tongue. He grimaced and wiped his mouth.

“Aw, Wishbone, no!”

He could have tried again, but not only was Darcy too busy laughing at him, the rest of the dogs had joined them on the porch and were vying for his attention again. Harry tried to nudge onto his lap and this time he really did fall on his ass, knocked backwards and suddenly smothered with fur.

This was how it was going to end. Suffocated under a mountain of fur while his girlfriend sat by and giggled about it. Clint peeked through the tangle of legs and tails attacking him and caught a glimpse of Darcy, happily letting Lucky seat himself on her outstretched legs while she scratched his butt. 

Okay, sure. He could do with less dog breath and less vacuuming and more money in his pocket if he didn’t have to spend it all on truly gigantic bags of dog food. But that look of pure joy on Darcy’s face?

Yeah, that was worth all the slobber in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a kudos if you made it this far. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.
> 
> And! You could go follow the [Taserhawk blog](http://taserhawk.tumblr.com) run by myself and BoudicaMuse, reblog some content just like this, and enter yourself into a giveaway to have one of these drabbles extended just for you!


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